


Dancing for You

by your_pal_A



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - High School, Happy Ending, Kippen Siblings, M/M, resolved angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-15 04:38:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17522123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_pal_A/pseuds/your_pal_A
Summary: As Cyrus prepares a dance for his high school's talent show, he finds himself entangled in a new friendship with none other than TJ Kippen, Grant High School's resident jock. Only good things can come from new friends...right?





	1. Chapter One

The music pumped through his veins. It crescendoed, and Cyrus no longer had any idea where he was with respective to anything else in the studio, much less the exact choreography he was dancing at the moment, but that didn’t really matter. All he could see was gleaming green eyes. All he could feel was smooth hands gripping his wrists. As the music ended, Cyrus collapsed on the floor, crying and wondering how he had gotten to this point.

(6 weeks earlier)

Cyrus’s chest heaved as he held his final pose and waited for the music to finish. To be quite honest, the dance wasn’t his best work. The first two minutes or so of choreography was pretty solid, but he ran out of time and had to rush the last bits of choreography that day, so it was pretty repetitive towards the end. But the judges (consisting of the principal and the two assistant principals) seemed to like it, and there was a heavy round of applause, so it must have been alright. Cyrus could even make out some people standing up (that was probably just Andi, Buffy, and Jonah, but it was still cool!). After the judges finished their remarks, he walked off stage to gulp down about 2 full bottles of water.  
The talent show lasted for six more acts. Most of them were singers, but there was also a band, another dancer, and a guy who did killer impressions. Cyrus was particularly impressed with his Miss Piggy. Then the judges called all of the acts back on stage to commend everyone for performing.  
“Remember to vote online for your favorite act! We’ll see eight of you back here in four weeks for finals! Good luck and good night!” said the principal. The lights rose and the audience began to meander to the auditorium doors. By the time Cyrus had collected his bag and water bottles from backstage, Andi, Buffy, and Jonah were waiting for him by the stage doors.  
“That was amazing Cyrus! I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on us!” gushed Andi.  
“Yeah, Cy-Guy! Since when do you dance?” asked Jonah.  
“This is my fifteenth year.”  
“Wait, how old are you again?”  
“Buffy, we’ve been best friends with him for over 10 years!” interjected Andi.  
“Yeah, but I wanted to make sure that I didn’t accidentally forget that he was immortal or something. You’ve really been dancing since you were two?” she responded.  
“Well, I was three by the first recital, but yeah, I was two when I started. Didn’t you know that?” Cyrus said.  
Buffy shrugged. “I guess I never really knew the specifics. I just knew that you’d been dancing since basically forever.”  
“Well, Good-man and good girls, what do you say to celebratory milkshakes at the Spoon?” said Jonah.  
“Well there’s nothing to celebrate yet since I haven’t been voted through, but who am I to say no to milkshakes?”

 

Cyrus rode with Andi, and Buffy rode with Jonah. The creative car beat the athletic car, and Cyrus went inside to secure the good booth while Andi called her mom to let her know where she was. She came back right after Cyrus ordered their baby taters and milkshakes (vanilla for Andi and chocolate for the rest of them), joined by Buffy and Jonah and a bouquet of flowers.  
“We would have given them to you earlier, but we didn’t trust ourselves to keep them intact through the entire show,” said Andi as Buffy handed him the flowers.  
“You guys really didn’t have to get me flowers! I wasn’t that good, and besides it was only the prelims!”  
“Yes we did! It’s not like we could’ve made you posters like you do for Buffy’s basketball games or organized snacks like you do for the Space Otters, so we did the next best thing,” said Jonah, sliding into the booth across from Cyrus.  
“Whatever, I probably won’t be put through anyway.”  
“Shut up! Yes you will!” said Andi.  
Cyrus would’ve argued further, but their milkshakes arrived at that moment.  
“Vanilla milkshake?” asked the waitress.  
“That’s me!” Andi exclaimed as Buffy rolled her eyes.  
“You have got to be kidding me. Vanilla isn’t even a flavor!” Buffy said while helping pass Cyrus and Jonah their drinks.  
“Yes it is! It’s the flavor of sweetness and deliciousness!” Andi shot back.  
Cyrus settled back into his seat. He had heard this same argument at least a thousand times. Buffy maintained that vanilla barely had any more flavor than water. Andi disagreed. At this point, a trip to their favorite milkshake-and-baby-tater spot wasn’t complete without a new iteration of the debate. Still, Cyrus enjoyed it. Their friendly banter allowed him to relax.  
Until he spilled his milkshake, that is.  
“You are definitely the clumsiest dancer I know,” said Buffy while Cyrus groaned and tried to blot the milkshake off of his shirt.  
“Shut up. Yeah, I’m definitely going to need use water on this. Be right back,” Cyrus responded as he scooted past Andi to head to the bathroom.  
Fortunately for Cyrus, the milkshake was surprisingly easy to clean up. He was in the bathroom for no more than four minutes, and he was about to head back to his table when he heard a toilet flush. He looked up to see none other than TJ Kippen staring right back at him in the mirror. Cyrus didn’t know anything about TJ other than that he was in his history class and that he was the source of Buffy’s hatred for male jocks, but he suspected that nothing good could come of this interaction.  
“Hey, aren’t you that guy that danced in the talent show?” asked TJ. So he’s going the “fein interest” route Cyrus thought to himself.  
“Y-yeah,” he said out loud, and, in a moment of unprecedented confidence, he added “You got a problem with that?”  
“No, not at all!” TJ chuckled, as if he found the idea of having a problem with Cyrus ridiculous. “I just think it’s interesting that you keep so much to yourself in class but you’re willing to dance in front of the entire school.”  
“It wasn’t the entire school! And how do you know enough about me to even make that judgement? You started off this entire conversation with ‘Aren’t you that guy?’ It sounds to me like you don’t even know who I am!”  
“You’re in my history class.” When a look of confusion passed over Cyrus’s face, TJ continued. “What? You can’t honestly tell me you never noticed.”  
“No, I know that you’re in my class. I just didn’t think you knew that. You’re a pretty aloof guy.”  
“Well history just happens to be the one class I pay attention in.”  
“Are you telling me that TJ Kippen, Grant’s resident stoic jock, is a history nerd?”  
“I didn’t say that! … But yes, I am. Don’t go spreading it around! The last thing I need is having my reputation ruined by some smallfry that danced in the talent show.”  
Growing, more confident by the minute, Cyrus responded with “Aw, and just as we were getting to be friends!”  
TJ didn’t necessarily growl, per se, but he was intimidating enough to make Cyrus quickly add on “But you have my word! I will not go around ruining your reputation. Even if I think you’re being ridiculous.”  
For a moment Cyrus thought TJ was going to say that that wasn’t enough and demand that he somehow remove that particular piece of information from his brain, but then he sighed and said “Thank you,” which threw Cyrus for a second before he moved on to another question that had been brewing in his mind since he first saw TJ in the bathroom.  
“So what are you doing here anyway? I don’t think I saw any of your friends out there.”  
“I’m just picking up Amber. She gets off work in five minutes.”  
“Oh, are you two dating?” Cyrus really did not care about TJ’s answer, but he figured he had to do his duty as Andi’s friend.  
“God no,” TJ groaned. “Why does everyone ask us that? Can no one get it through their thick skulls that we’re fucking siblings!”  
“Wait, she’s your sister?”  
“Yes, unfortunately. And,” TJ said, pulling out his phone, “apparently she got off a little early. See ya later, Underdog.”  
“Bye TJ--wait, what did you call me?” Cyrus asked, but TJ had already left the bathroom. Sighing, Cyrus dabbed at his shirt one last time before returning to his baby taters (and his friends, but his taters were more important).

“What took you so long?” Jonah asked as Cyrus slid back into the booth.  
“Yeah, what exactly were you doing in that bathroom, Cyrus?” Buffy added.  
“Oh, TJ Kippen was here to pick up Amber and he was in the bathroom and we ended up having an...interesting conversation.”  
“Wait, is TJ dating Amber?” Andi interjected.  
“You don’t have to worry about TJ stealing your girlfriend Andi,” Cyrus responded.  
“She’s not my girlfriend!”  
“But you want her to be,” teased Cyrus. “Apparently they’re siblings. Not sure why no one seems to know that.”  
“Anyway,” said Buffy, steering the discussion back to Cyrus’s conversation in the bathroom, “What did you guys talk about? Why were you guys talking in the first place?”  
“To be completely honest, I have no idea. He asked if I was ‘that guy that danced in the talent show,’” Cyrus said with air quotes.  
“Did he mess with you? I swear to God-”  
“No, Buffy, stop! He was actually pretty cool about it, and then I learned that he’s a huge his-” Cyrus paused, remembering TJ’s almost-threat about ruining his reputation. “He’s a huge Hiss Hiss fan.”  
“Hiss Hiss?” Andi asked.  
“Yeah, apparently it’s some indie emo band or something.”  
“That sounds like total bs,” Buffy said. Cyrus just shrugged. “Fine, keep your secrets. Is that all that happened?”  
“Yeah. He got text from Amber saying that she was done early, and then he left, but then as he was leaving he called me some name. I think it was Underdog? I’m not really sure. He left before I could ask.”  
“I wonder what that’s about,” said Andi.  
“Me too. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow in history.”  
“I didn’t know he was in any of your classes,” said Jonah.  
“Yeah, I wouldn’t have expected him to be in AP US History,” Buffy added.  
“I guess everyone’s got their secrets,” said Cyrus. “Well, now that the baby taters and shakes are gone, I guess it’s unfortunately time to go home. Don’t make that face, Andi! We need to sleep!”  
“Fine,” she grumbled. “Do you need a ride, Cy?”  
“Nah, it’s nice out, and my house is only ten minutes from here.”  
“Okay. Bye everyone!”  
In usual Good Hair Crew (and Jonah) fashion, it took ten minutes for everyone to say goodbye and get out the door. When Cyrus finally started his walk home, the cool breeze was a breath of fresh air. As much as he loved his friends, they got to be a little overbearing at times. Who cares if he and TJ Kippen exchanged a few words in the bathroom?  
'I care' thought a tiny piece of his mind, but, as it made no sense, Cyrus elected to ignore it. Instead, he plugged in his earbuds and started to choreograph a new dance. If he was put through, maybe he’d use it for the finals. The song was only about three minutes long, and it varied enough to allow Cyrus to use lots of different moves. Before long, Cyrus was turning and jumping home as much as he was walking, and he was still dancing when he reached his front door eight minutes later.  
“How was the talent show, honey? I’m so sad I had to miss it,” his mom called from the dining room.  
“Mom, it’s fine! I told, you, it was only the preliminary round!”  
“I know, sweetie, I just love watching you dance so much!”  
“Thanks, Mom. I’m pretty tired though, so I think I’m going to go to bed now.”  
“Of course. You can tell me all about it in the morning.”  
Cyrus practically sleep-walked his way to bed, barely registering his toothbrush and sink and pajamas as he used each to prepare for sleep. However, just before he finally drifted off to sleep, there was one very clear image in his mind: TJ chuckling. What’s that all about? Cyrus wondered, but he didn’t have time to answer his own question before falling completely asleep.


	2. Chapter Two

“Good morning Grant High!” The voice of Grant’s principal, Mr. Hayes, rang out from the loudspeaker. Although he usually paid attention to the announcements (unlike most of his peers), Cyrus could barely even keep his eyes open. He was really tired out from the talent show, and he almost overslept. He listened to the announcements as best he could, but his “best” ended up being falling half-asleep for everything but the very first and very last announcements. He zoned back in just as Mr. Hayes finished with “And please go vote for all of our very talented students who performed last night! Videos and the ballot can be found on the school’s website!”

“Does he not understand that you literally can not vote for ‘all’ of the performers?” sniggered Buffy, who sat next to Cyrus in first period Spanish.

“Oh, you know Mr. Hayes,” said Cyrus as he yawned. He really needed to get more sleep. “Besides, it’s a nice gesture, right?”

“You’re too nice, Cyrus.”

“Well someone has to stick up for the guy. All everyone ever does it makes fun of him.”

“Principal’s pet,” teased Buffy.

“Whatever. Let’s get down to business before Senora Gonzalez yells at us.”

 

Cyrus drifted through school as a zombie. He was probably going to have to relearn everything he was taught that day, but he was too exhausted to care. His math teacher even noticed that he was more tired than she’d ever seen him! After almost running into several people in the hallway (including one who Cyrus swore didn’t even go to Grant), Cyrus somehow got himself to history on time. Granted, he was literally the last person to arrive when he was usually one of the first, but Cyrus was willing to count it as a win. Unfortunately for him, someone had decided to appropriate his typical seat (which was the best one in the entire room, if you asked Cyrus), leaving the only open seat at the end of the last row, next to TJ Kippen. Cyrus groaned, but he couldn’t help but be somewhat satisfied with the temporary change. As much as he hated the back row, Cyrus was dying to have another conversation with TJ, and, more importantly, find out what the heck ‘Underdog’ meant.

However, before Cyrus could even open his mouth to ask TJ, Mr. Forbes started class. ‘That’s right,’ thought Cyrus. ‘I’m not as early as I usually am, so I don’t have time to chit-chat like I usually do.’

“Good morning class! I hope you all got the chance to go see the talent show last night! Let me tell you, Grant has some very talented students! In fact, we even have a very skilled dancer in this class! Our own Cyrus Goodman killed it last night!”

“Thanks,” Cyrus mumbled while the entire class turned to look at him. He really did not need the entire class to be very aware of his dancing abilities. Sure, he did decide to go and dance in front of hundreds of his peers, but he didn’t expect any of them to talk to him about it. Now, Mr. Forbes was practically inviting them to! Although, Cyrus supposed, he already had someone talk to him about it. TJ. In the bathroom of the Spoon.

Speaking of TJ, when Cyrus glanced over at him, he found a very soft and a very not-intimidating TJ staring back, before he shuddered and looked away. Cyrus was really going to have to interrogate him later.

“Anyway, we are going to begin our decades projects today! Now, they won’t be due until about a month after the AP test (which let me remind you is in three weeks!), but I wanted to give you guys ample time to come up with great ideas! This will be a partner project, so I’ll give you guys some time to pick partners after I’ve explained the entire project.”

Anxiety spiked through Cyrus. None of his friends were in this class! He looked over each of his classmates. Steph would pair up with Katie, Andrew would go with Victoria, Alex and Oscar would probably work together, Kira was too bossy and too much of a perfectionist, and Reed was too much of a dumbass (Cyrus wasn’t even sure how he got into AP US). Maybe he could work with Leo? His locker was right next to Cyrus’s, and he always seemed nice.

“So, without any further ado, I release you to the Battle Royale that is the picking of project partners!” announced Mr. Forbes (ever the dramatist), and the chaos began.

Cyrus stood up and started to make a beeline for Leo, but then TJ knocked over the tall pile of papers and folders that was sitting on Cyrus’s desk. By the time he finished cleaning everything up, Lester had already claimed Leo, and everyone one else had partnered up. Except for TJ.

“Guess we’re stuck together, huh?” said TJ, although he didn’t seem to be too disappointed about it.

“I guess so,” said Cyrus as he sat back down. Since he was already sitting next to TJ, there was no need to move to another spot.

“Kippen and Goodman? There’s a pair I never thought I’d see,” said Mr. Forbes while he wrote their names down next to a decade. “You two will have the 80s. Don’t mess it up! I am entrusting you with the decade of my youth!”

“Forbes is such a dork,” TJ said after their teacher walked away to assign decades to the other groups.

“I know, but it’s sweet. What other teacher is willing to be that goofy with their students?”

“Yeah, you’re right.” TJ paused a moment before a grin broke out on his face. “Did you watch those videos of him that Reed found?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you in the groupchat?” After Cyrus shook his head no, TJ continued “Oh, give me your number and I’ll add you. Anyway, there are these videos of him on YouTube where he’s telling stories. One of them is about him selling all of his belongings and going backpacking across Europe.”

“There is no way he actually did that.”

“I dunno, he does have that glimmer in his eyes…” TJ’s sentence drifted off and they both started at their teacher for a moment before Cyrus brought them back to the task at hand.

“Well, I guess we should get started.”

“Yeah, I guess.” A beat passed. “So,” TJ continued, “Do you have any idea what we should get started on?”

“Not really? Brainstorming is probably the place to start, and I don’t know about you, but personally, I think my brain is feeling pretty calm right now.” Cyrus was expecting a response, and he got one, but not in the form he thought he would get. Instead of using his words, like, y’know, any decent person, TJ started laughing. 

‘Great,’ though Cyrus. ‘He’s finally come to his senses and realized what a joke this is and now he’ll try to weasel out of being my partner, which is perfectly fine by me because I probably would’ve ended doing it all anyw-’

“That’s a good one, Underdog,” TJ said, (quite rudely) interrupting Cyrus’s inner monologue. “Mind if I use it?”

“Wait, you mean you weren’t just laughing at me?”

“What? I was laughing at what you said, not at you.”

“Oh,” Cyrus swallowed. “Well, how stormy is your brain feeling right now?”

“I’d said pretty stormy.” TJ grinned, but Cyrus could just barely hear TJ add an “as always” onto the end of his statement. As much as Cyrus would have loved to dive into what TJ meant, he decided against it. If TJ did in fact not hate him (which seemed to be the case), Cyrus was not about to go and ruin it.

“I guess we can get started with that then?” he said instead.

“Sound like a plan.”

 

Twenty minutes and more than a couple of pieces of paper later, TJ and Cyrus had come up with approximately one hundred million ideas, none of them very good. 

“What even happened in the 80s?” groaned TJ as he crumpled up another piece of paper and expertly shot it into the trash can.

“Three minutes twenty-three seconds to three minutes thirty-four seconds,” said Cyrus.

“Huh?”

“‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’ You know, where it goes ‘Wheel of fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide/foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz/hypodermics on the shore, China’s under martial law/Rock and Roller coaster wars’? It happens between three minutes and twenty-three seconds and three minutes and thirty seconds.”

“One, how the fuck do you know that? Two, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT?!”

“I thought it would be valuable information when I was like 12.”

“Seriously? You have got to be the most interesting person I know, Underdog.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say I’m that interesting. And what’s with that nickname? That’s like the third time you’ve called me ‘Underdog.’”

Before TJ could answer, the bell rung. “I’ll keep trying to come up with ideas!” he called as he went out the door. “I’ll let you know if I think of any good ones!”

 

“You guys are NOT going to believe this!” Cyrus said, sitting down with at his lunch table.

“What is it, Cy? Did they overstock chocolate chocolate muffins and are giving the extras away for free?” responded Buffy.

“Haha, very funny.”

“What? 9 times out of 10, when you are yelling in the cafeteria, it’s about those damn muffins!”

“Is not!”

“Is too!”

“While I am sure that that would be a very entertaining argument to listen to for twenty minutes, I want to know what Cyrus was going to tell us,” interrupted Andi.

“Oh! So you know how I had that conversation with TJ Kippen yesterday?” said Cyrus.

“Yeah, did you ever figure out what that was all about? And the whole ‘Underdog’ thing?” said Jonah.

“I’ll get to that. So today Mr. Forbes has us pick partners for the decades project. And somehow I ended up being partners with TJ! And for some reason he seems happy about this! And then he called me Underdog again, like twice!”

“I’m starting to wonder what exactly his motives are,” said Buffy.

“Me too! But don’t you think he would’ve just shoved me or something if he wanted to mess with me? It’s so much easier than being forced to spend time with me.”

“Maybe he just wants to get a good grade on the assignment?” suggested Andi.

“Maybe,” said Cyrus.

“Speak of the devil,” muttered Buffy, and, before he could ask what she meant, Cyrus felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to face a grinning Kippen.

“Hey! I just has an absolutely amazing idea for our project!” TJ said excitedly.

“Well? What is it!” responded Cyrus.

“So you know how you were talking about that one section of ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire’ that’s about the 80s? What if we rewrote it be entirely about that decade!”

“Hmm, an iconic song filled with events of an iconic decade? I think that’s a great idea! We’d probably have to write a more detailed explanation and analysis about the events, but it would definitely work!”

“Awesome! I guess we can figure out when to get together and work on it tomorrow?”

“Sounds like a plan! See you in history!”

“See ya in history!”

When Cyrus turned back around to continue his lunch and conversation with his friends, he was met with a couple of shit-eating grins.

“What?” he asked.

“You seemed a little enthusiastic about that exchange,” teased Andi.

“Yeah, I could literally hear the exclamation points at the ends of your sentences,” added Buffy.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Cyrus.

“They’re talking about how you obviously like TJ,” said Jonah without looking up from his phone.

After a beat of shocked silence from the others at the table, Jonah looked up. “What? I’m not as oblivious as you all think I am,” he said, and laughter erupted from the table.

“But seriously,” said Buffy as she tried to suppress giggles, “you so totally like him!”

“I so totally do not!”

“Okay…” said Buffy, and they all went back to eating their lunches.

“Oh, hi TJ!” said Andi.

“TJ?” Cyrus whipped around, but TJ was nowhere to be seen. Andi and Buffy, however, were giggling uncontrollably behind him.

“Yep, you don’t like him at all,” said Andi.

“Oh, shut up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm hoping to update every 10 days or so, but school is annoying, so no promises.  
> Shout out to Billy Joel for the iconic song and my APUSH teacher for the inspiration for Mr. Forbes (the videos and backpacking across Europe thing is straight from real life)!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is my first fic, so sorry if I messed a few things up (especially with the format--Ao3 is confusing). Feel free to give me critical feedback either on here or on tumblr @tiberiusjeffersonkippen if you have the time/energy! Thanks again!


End file.
